The Path to the Lake

by Susan Sallis

  I put the phone in my pocket when I went into the garden. Mrs Hardy had not phoned, but Hardy had sent two messages from her. The first had told me that everything was fine, and the twins were just lovely, and my flowers were lovely. The second had been . . . odd. It had mentioned the weather and the difficulty of living in a flat without a garden for the washing and the dustbins. I had not phoned back because Hardy was working in the day and then driving up to Cheltenham most evenings, and I thought he had enough on his plate. But if he rang again I was determined to be on the other end of the phone. Of course, it did not ring.

  As the afternoon quickly waned into dark grey I went back inside, lit the fire, pulled the coffee table close to it, and went into the kitchen to cut bread and butter. On the table was a battered old door knob. I stood very still where I was and stared at it. I knew it. And I knew where it had been last September.

  To make assurance doubly sure I went slowly towards it, touched it with my forefinger, felt it to be slippery. It was still muddily wet. When I picked it up, the shape of it fitting into my palm confirmed it was the same one. I checked that the front door was bolted and the side gate padlocked. None of the windows were open, because it was one of those damp, misty late November afternoons. No one could have wrenched that door knob from its cement housing; no one could have put it inside my bungalow. Yet it was there.

  I got the car out and drove as if the devil was behind me. The door knob was on my lap, and at the first of the hairpins it rolled on to the floor; I tried to kick it under my seat, the car veered slightly, and I swallowed and said aloud, ‘Control yourself, for goodness’ sake.’ It was four o’clock by the digital clock on the dashboard, but I needed the headlights. At the bottom of the hill Saturday shoppers were beginning to turn for home. A council lorry was parked inconveniently, and I had to wait while they repositioned it and extended a ladder towards a street light. Then I turned towards the sea and drove as far as I could towards the lake. I parked next to the ice-cream stall in the amusement arcade, foraged for the door knob and crossed the grass to the footpath. It was bitterly cold, the sea air wrapped me damply, I hadn’t stopped for gloves or hat, and the fleece I had worn all day for gardening had no hood. I ran along the path and stood above the lake, my breath like smoke in front of me. The lake was empty of water; the sluice gates were open; the little promenade was waist-high in rubbish of all sorts. There was a bright yellow digger where the diving boards had been and a barrier tape across the bottom of the steps. The smell was atrocious.

  I stared for ages. They were going to clean up the area. Why? Were they then going to replace the ‘amenities’ and get the whole thing going again . . . deckchairs, paddle boats, changing huts, springboard . . . ? And the door knob two feet below the water line of the big pool . . . was it still there or was it in the pocket of my gardening fleece? I clutched at it. I had to know.

  I ran down the steps, ducked under the tape and stood on the small area of the little promenade not stacked high with muddy, oozing rubbish. I edged past the enormous mechanical digger. No one was inside the cab; I could see a packet of cigarettes and a newspaper on the seat. I side-stepped past that, and then over the concrete bridge with the housing for the boards, and reached the retaining wall. I looked down. This was where I had been ‘helped’ into the water almost two months ago; dammit, I had told myself often that the push had been all in my mind, but I knew, standing there, looking ten or twelve feet down to the mucky sludge on the bottom of the lake, that I had most definitely been pushed. I glanced around me, checking no one was within arms’ length this time. It was too far to fall now that the water had gone. The only way to reach the wall which separated paddling pool from swimming pool was to walk along that retaining wall. The tide was somewhere else; the drop down to the rocks and pebbles of the sea-bed must be twenty feet. Mrs Bartholomew would have had a fit if she had seen me edge on to the wall’s broad top and begin to walk oh-so-slowly along its length. But she had not just found a door knob on her kitchen table.

  Half-way down that stone wall, I got a steady, proper balance and stopped long enough to stare at the end of the swimming pool and scan its length and breadth for a door knob. It was a ridiculous thing to do: the only way to complete this stupid, stupid task was to keep moving. There wasn’t a chance of spotting something as small as a door knob in the muddy, flinty darkness of the empty pool. And I had lost momentum.

  Somehow I got going again; my heart was racing and I was beginning to feel sick with the effort not to look to my left and see that sheer drop and the rocks beneath me. I reached the right-angled turn with a sob of sheer relief, then I crouched and straddled the wall which divided the paddling pool and the swimming pool. The drop on my right was still dangerously deep, but on the left it was barely six feet. I sat there for some time, just breathing and telling myself I was all right. It was such a crazy thing to do I was incredulous at myself. I could have come tomorrow or the next time it was sunny . . . brought the binoculars and stood up on the path searching the wall through them. And here I was, smeared with the rank mud that was everywhere, and it was almost dark, and the fire I had lit an hour ago would be dead again and . . . I realized I was nearly exhausted.

  I began to bump myself along the wall; I could have walked along it easily, but I needed to be able to lean right over and search that rough surface every two or three yards. It wasn’t difficult, but for some reason I was sobbing.

  A shout came from behind me just as I was convinced the door knob was no longer cemented into the wall but was in my pocket. I straightened up with enormous relief. I’d done it before I could be hauled ignominiously ‘ashore’. A man in the bright yellow waterproof jacket of a council workman was coming down the steps, lifting the tape, running close to the wall past the heaps of rubbish towards the children’s pool. I started to bump forward to meet him.

  ‘What the bleedin’ ’ell d’you think you’re doing, lady?’ He started along the wall to meet me. ‘You saw the bleedin’ tape – Christ, I only leave the cab two minutes to go to the toilet and when I get back . . .’ He held out his hand. I grabbed it and hauled myself to my feet. We both staggered back to the little promenade. He kept ranting and it was like music in my ears. I gathered he’d got a case of the runs from eating parsnips the night before, and he shouldn’t even be here, but it was a decent contract, and if he got it finished before the next crazy woman came along it would all be worthwhile. He was blessedly ordinary. He stood next to one of the odorous heaps and pointed a stubby finger to where the little prom ascended gently to the old sandpit. I had forgotten all about this entrance; it had been fenced off but of course the digger had had to come down to this level somehow. He said shakily, ‘Sorry to go on. But you could have been badly injured, and I’d have been hauled up for it. Now just go home like a good lady and make yourself a cup of tea. We’ll forget all about it.’

  I’d found out what I’d come for, and made apologetic noises as I turned away. But then I turned back. ‘What is happening here? Is it going to be demolished?’

  He looked exasperated. ‘They don’t tell me nothing official, only what I got to do. It were drained last week, and I got to get the muck out and trailer it over to the landfill.’ I waited and he added, resigned, ‘The word is that it’s just a clear-up and repair job, then they’ll put down the sluice gates, let it refill and be a natural feature. No money for a proper re-fit.’

  ‘Do you know anything about it? When it was built?’

  ‘Twenties, I believe. The old squire paid for it, then handed it over to the town. We could do with a few more like him.’

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled, loving the way he made all these things so ordinary. I nearly showed him the door knob, but he was in no mood for anything more. ‘I’m sorry to have caused so much trouble. It’s just . . . you know . . . a spot of local research. There’s a story about a Victorian door knob being implanted in the wall of the swimming area and I wondered whether it was true.’

  �
��There’s nowt there now, lady, I would have seen it. You want to talk to the old district engineer. I think he’s still alive.’

  I stopped in my tracks and looked round again; but my lovely ordinary yellow-jacketed digger man was walking carefully past a mound of weed and driftwood topped with a beer can.

  I knew full well the ‘old district engineer’ was still alive. His name was John Jinks and he was living in Tall Trees nursing home at the top of Christmas Tump.

  Six

  IT WAS MORE than a week before the Hardys came home. Mrs Hardy had the exhausted look of someone who has been in a war zone, Mr Hardy was grimly silent. She said, ‘I cannot believe it is only a fortnight since Mrs Venables and me saw that Harry Potter film.’ He said nothing; he hovered over the kettle, waiting for it to boil. He had tried to tidy up before he went to Cheltenham to pick up his wife, but realized now that he had no idea where the tea caddy was.

  She said, ‘Now I know how that girl feels.’

  Unexpectedly he knew at once that she was talking about Mrs Venables, and he said decidedly, ‘No, you don’t. We got new things to think about. I’ll have to finish Tom’s attic room a bit quick. You’ll have to get stuff in. We got the babies to think about. She hasn’t got nothing like that.’

  Hilda Hardy shook her head but said, ‘You’re right. We can look forward. She can’t do that.’

  He found the tea caddy in the fridge and made tea. She sat opposite him. He poured two mugs of tea and pushed one across to her. He said, ‘It’s Tom, isn’t it? He looks like a zombie.’

  ‘Yes. He doesn’t seem to realize what has happened. He’s on the go all the time. He told me yesterday he has signed up for a mother-and-baby course.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that. Good luck to him.’

  ‘Yes. But there’s Della’s mother. He knew she would blame him. He blames himself. But he thought . . .’ She frowned painfully. ‘He thought she would . . . grieve. Like we grieve. More still p’raps. Maybe.’

  She paused and they both thought about it. Hardy had nothing to say. She added, ‘They never were like us. She didn’t even tell Della when her own dad died. Tom didn’t know. We didn’t know.’ She sighed. ‘No. They never were like us.’

  He spoke with conviction. ‘They weren’t. And that’s for sure.’

  She hugged his arm. Then said as if changing the subject, ‘There’s still the other woman, too. What was her name?’

  ‘Elisabeth.’

  ‘He went to see her a couple of times. I couldn’t . . . bear that.’

  ‘We’ve known about her, my maid. He’s always been honest and open with us. And din’t we – you – always know Della weren’t the right wife for him? So, there could be a chance for our Tom with this Elisabeth.’ She said nothing, and he waited for her to drink, then said, ‘I know you too well, my maid.’

  She lowered her head, in acknowledgment. ‘It’s always the upbringing at fault, Hardy. I thought we’d brought up Tom to be loyal and faithful. And he chose to marry her. And he told her about this Elisabeth . . . tis no wonder Della’s blood pressure was high.’

  ‘We didn’t spoil him,’ he said stubbornly. ‘We never had the money to spoil him. And if he hadn’t worked his way through the medical school, we couldn’t have afforded that, neither.’

  ‘But he hasn’t been faithful, Hardy. Not for very long, at any rate.’

  He was silent while she finished her tea. Then he drank his. Then he said, ‘He might not’ve been faithful in that sense, Hildie. But he were loyal. Soon as he knew she was expecting, he was back with her. And he would have stayed with her. You know that – you said it yourself.’

  ‘I do know that.’ She spoke in a low voice. ‘Oh, Hardy. There’s so much to do, and we’re not youngsters any more.’

  He stood up. ‘I’d best get on, then.’

  ‘And I had, too.’ She pushed back her chair and stood with him. ‘I’ll pop out and get some nice steak and kidney.’

  Just for a moment they clasped each other.

  Vivian’s story

  It took me a whole week to garner the courage to face John Jinks. I wasn’t sure how much my father-in-law had told him. It was obvious he knew enough to dislike me and to blame me for what had happened . . . perhaps he was right. I could not remember things properly any more. Perhaps I had been running for too long . . . the Gingerbread Woman had escaped the past.

  Anyway, it was Sunday afternoon and I was sitting opposite Jinx in the very public, very large sitting room at Tall Trees. I had suggested the small parlour upstairs, but he had rebutted that by asking me aggressively why the hell I thought he had insisted on a ground-floor room when he’d come to this god-forsaken place ten years ago. Hadn’t I noticed he was sitting in a bloody wheelchair?

  I did not point out that the lift was quite large enough for his chair, and I was capable of wheeling it down the hall. He wanted to be angry with me, and I wanted his cooperation, so I smiled as if he’d made a joke, and asked whether I could fetch some tea for him. A nurse had wheeled a large trolley just inside the door, and people were going back and forth pouring themselves a cup and taking cakes as if they were starving. Pretty soon there would be no tea and no cakes left for Jinx.

  ‘I’ll have mine when you’ve gone,’ he said tersely.

  I took that to mean hurry up and say what you have to, then go. I plunged straight in.

  ‘I’m after some information about the old lake next to Becket’s Hill.’

  He had been staring at my hands in my lap; I knew they were dirty. I’d been in the garden again, and I might have forgotten to wash them. Now, suddenly, he looked up sharply and narrowed his brownish eyes at me.

  ‘What sort of information?’ he asked.

  ‘Did you have anything to do with the plans or the building?’

  ‘Building started in 1922, and I guess it was mooted and plans drawn a couple of years before that. I was born in 1922.’ He spoke levelly.

  That made him eighty-four. Father-in-law had been ten years younger.

  I pressed my lips together in disappointment, then made to stand up. ‘Thanks anyway.’ I tried to smile humorously. ‘You can have your tea now. Sorry to have bothered you.’

  He leaned out of his wheelchair, grabbed one of my wrists and pushed me back down. ‘I was in charge of the maintenance after the war. It came under public works. I was responsible for public works.’

  I sat there for a moment collecting myself, rubbing my wrist. I could hear him breathing.

  ‘You emptied it now and then and did the necessary repairs?’

  ‘It was emptied and cleaned every spring ready for the summer. Not much in the way of repairs. Mortar here and there. We cranked up the sluice gate a couple of feet – didn’t want to wash away any of the sea-bed just there because of the retaining wall, so we let it out slowly. Took two or three days. Then I had men with yard brooms and hoses. Took them another two or three days, but you could have eaten your picnic off that lake floor by the time they’d finished. Pride in the job in those days.’

  There was a pause while we both thought about his words. I heard an angry, embittered old man; I expect he heard a proud craftsman.

  I said, ‘This sounds crazy. Did you ever notice a door knob about half-way down the wall of the deep pool where it divides off the boating lake?’

  ‘A door knob?’ He stared at me as if I was mad. ‘For God’s sake stop fidgeting with your hands all the time! Did you say a door knob?’

  I fished in the pocket of my mac. ‘Yes. In fact, this door knob.’ I put it on the small table next to his chair, which already contained his spectacle case and a newspaper. It started to roll on to the floor, and he grabbed it.

  ‘Bloody table. None of them level.’ He looked at it then gave it back to me. ‘No,’ he said.

  I waited for something else. I knew there was something else. His brownish eyes were still on the knob, which now lay in my lap. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s brass. Corroded of course.’ I nodded.
‘How did you find it?’

  I was going to lie, then realized there was no point. I told him about being pushed into the water, and thinking I might drown, and finding the door knob.

  He said quietly, ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must have imagined the push. But it made no difference why you were in the water. You were there. And you had to get out.’

  I said quietly, ‘I saw the man who did it. He chased me up into Becket’s Wood a couple of days later. I hid and watched him when he came back. He spotted me and sort of waved. Or saluted. I’m not sure.’

  He came straight to the nub of it all. ‘Was it David?’ he asked.

  I tried to laugh. ‘How could it be?’

  He stared directly at me. ‘Why not? Because you killed him? Don’t murder victims come back to haunt their killers sometimes?’

  I gasped and put my hands to my face.

  He said quickly, ‘I know it wasn’t your fault. Sorry. I’ve got a lot of time to sit here and think about it all, and I can’t help . . . sometimes . . . wishing he’d never met you.’

  I half-sobbed, half-groaned. ‘Oh God . . .’

  ‘You think it was him, don’t you?’

  ‘I couldn’t see a face. Or hands. But he had feet. I could hear them thumping the ground. I put my ear against the earth and I could hear his footfalls quite clearly.’

  ‘Right.’

  Another long pause; I wondered whether I should leave.

  He said, ‘How did you get the door knob? You didn’t go back and dig it out, did you?’

  ‘No. I found it. On my kitchen table.’ I had been looking down again, my hands still shielding my face. ‘I was gardening. The bungalow was locked, side gate too. I don’t know . . .’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A week ago. I got the car out of the garage and drove straight down to the lake. It’s being cleaned again. It’s empty but there’s still plenty of mud. It stinks to high heaven. There’s no door knob there any more. This is it.’